Summary: 354 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON NANOBIOSCIENCE, VOL. 6, NO. 4, DECEMBER 2007
Curve Tracking for Rapid Imaging in AFM
Sean B. Andersson, Member, IEEE
Abstract--A high-level feedback control approach for rapid
imaging in atomic force microscopy is presented. The algorithms
are designed for samples which are string-like, such as biopoly-
mers, and for boundaries. Rather than the simple raster-scan
pattern, data from the microscope are used in real-time to steer
the tip along the sample, drastically reducing the area to be im-
aged. An order-of-magnitude reduction in the time to acquire an
image is possible. The technique is illustrated through simulations
and through physical experiments.
Index Terms--Atomic force microscopy, biomedical microscopy.
I. INTRODUCTION
ATOMIC FORCE microscopes image samples by mea-
suring the interaction force between a very sharp tip
mounted at the end of a soft cantilever and the surface of the
sample. As with all scanning probe microscopies, the mea-
surement in atomic force microscopy (AFM) is a local one.
As a result an image is built pixel-by-pixel by raster-scanning